


drag you down

by envysparkler



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Whump, Enemy to Caretaker, Fake Character Death, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Panic Attacks, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, whump fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25015867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/envysparkler/pseuds/envysparkler
Summary: The Raft sinks.With all prisoners still locked in their cells.(Really should’ve taken that phone call, Tony.)
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Comments: 15
Kudos: 143





	drag you down

**Author's Note:**

> Tony thinks that the rogue Avengers all died. No one is actually dead.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I don’t – really, wait – goddammit –”

“Okay, so maybe this isn’t the best-thought-out plan –”

“I’d frankly be surprised if _any_ amount of thinking went into this plan.”

“– but in my defense Tony almost beat me to a pulp, so –”

“Cap, we’re losing ground fast.”

“This place is sinking.”

“No – Wanda, Wanda, please calm down, no, _Wanda_!”

“Shit.”

* * *

“Priority call from Secretary Ross, boss. There’s been a breach at the Raft.”

Tony groaned and looked over to Rhodey, who had paused mid-exercise.

Rhodey raised his eyebrows. “You think it’s Cap?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Tony snapped back, “Clearly I don’t know Steve well enough to judge what his next step will be.”

“Tony –”

“Just…just don’t. Please, honeybear.” Tony could still see the bright blue of Steve’s eyes as he looked him straight in the face and _lied_.

“Okay, Tones. Are you going to take the call?”

Tony sighed, “Yeah, put him through.” 

Tony waited until it connected and Ross’ angry voice rang out. “Stark, we have a problem –”

“Please hold,” Tony said, and disconnected the call.

Rhodey raised his eyebrows, leaning against the parallel bars.

“Steve is an asshole,” Tony narrowed his eyes. “A lying, traitorous asshole.”

“Sure,” Rhodey said, because Rhodey was a good friend.

“But you didn’t see the Raft,” Tony slumped in his chair, “You didn’t see what – Rhodey, they had Wanda in a _collar_.” Tony shook his head, “If Cap’s breaking them out, power to him. Also, screw Ross.”

“What if it isn’t Cap?” Rhodey asked.

“Yeah, well, Secretary Ross doesn’t get to deliver the Sokovia Accords _and_ expect the Avengers to act like U.S. military, so he can go –”

“Tony.”

Tony subsided with a grumble and stared out the glass doors at the empty lawn outside. The anger hadn’t gone away – a healthy dose of it had been doused by fear when Steve had _smashed_ his chest in with a shield, but Steve had lied to him.

Captain Goddamn America had _lied_. And then didn’t even bother to apologize.

So Ross could rot in the bed he’d made, because Tony was not his prison guard, but neither was he going to help Steve or the others that had made it so clear that they were not on his side.

Tony directed FRIDAY to block all calls from Ross and any other military bootlicker, and headed for the bar in the rec room.

* * *

Seven hours later, he stared mutely at the television screen as a somber reporter talked in front of a background of turbulent waves.

“– _sources believe that an external attack was the cause of the damage_ –”

“FRIDAY, tell me this isn’t real.”

“– _military personnel were able to evacuate, but unfortunately none of the prisoners_ –”

“I’m sorry, boss.”

“FRIDAY, no. This is some conspiracy hoax something, FRIDAY, it has to be, _tell me it isn’t real_!”

“– _rumors founded by the last outgoing calls from the Raft suggest that Captain America, once-Avenger and now fugitive, was behind the attack_ –”

“I’m sorry, boss. The reports have been confirmed.”

“No.”

“The Raft has, indeed, sunk.”

“ _No_.”

“According to my calculation of the water pressure on the Atlantic seafloor at the Raft’s location, there is an approximately 5% chance of survival for anyone who remained inside the prison.”

“– _topping off a wave of bad news starting from the explosion at a United Nations summit_ –”

Tony sank to his knees and buried his head in his hands. “FRIDAY?”

“Yes, boss?

“Calculate likelihood of stabilization if a suit was deployed to the Raft at the time of Ross’ first call.”

“– _leading some to speculate: is this the work of an organized agent? Are we, yet again, threatened by forces that seek to end the Avengers?_ ”

“FRIDAY.”

“Approximately 76% chance of stabilization, boss. 83% chance that over half of the prisoners could’ve been safely evacuated.”

Tony squeezed his eyes, but he could still see the headline running along the bottom of the screen.

_“RAFT SUNK: IS CAPTAIN AMERICA DEAD?”_

* * *

“You could’ve saved us, Tony. You could’ve saved us, if you had just tried.”

* * *

There were rescue missions. He muted FRIDAY when she kept quoting the decreasing likelihoods of finding anyone alive, and dove back into the ocean.

The pile of debris on the coast was getting higher. They hadn’t yet found any trace of human remains.

He had started designing a suit for deep sea terrain two minutes after he’d thrown a glass of whiskey through the TV, but it wasn’t finished. Tony dove as deep as he could, until FRIDAY’s warnings flashed red and loud, and then he picked up whatever floating junk he could find and hauled it back to the surface.

They had sent five teams of divers, as deep as a human could go, and stopped when they hadn’t found any bodies. What patchwork scans they’d been able to take of the sunken wreck of the Raft indicated that the hull had been breached.

No one, not even Captain America the supersoldier, could’ve survived that.

Tony didn’t care. He continued his dives – breaking the surface for air, choking down a protein bar whenever his head got fuzzy, taking a cat nap whenever Rhodey’s badgering was too much to bear, and waking up with a hand stretched out, as if to catch someone that was no longer there.

* * *

“Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away, what are you?”

Worthless.

* * *

They had tried to stop him, at the start. Had said that he wasn’t cleared to be there, waved the Accords at him – Ross had even shouted at him through a megaphone. Tony had ignored them all. There was nothing that was going to stop him, short of shooting him out of the sky.

(If they did, would he find Steve? Would he sink, down and down and down, until he could finally reach his friends?)

Pepper had gently asked him if he wanted to contact the families – Wanda had no one but Vision, who had listened to FRIDAY’s calculations and then refused to come out of the compound, but Sam had family and friends. Clint had the farm – and Tony couldn’t look Laura in the eyes and tell her what happened to her husband. (Tell the kids how he’d failed to save their father.) Scott Lang, the Ant-Man, had a daughter. Steve had – Steve had Bucky Barnes, who had finally broken free of HYDRA only to watch his long-lost friend disappear into an ocean. _Again_.

It didn’t matter. They’d already seen the news.

Tony didn’t want to think about Natasha. She would’ve come back to help. The very fact that she hadn’t meant that –

Well. Cap couldn’t have broken into the Raft all by himself. At the very least, wherever they were, they were together.

(They were together and he was alone.)

* * *

“Could never trust you, Tony. The one time we wanted – the one time we _needed_ you there and you were playing petty games with Ross.”

* * *

Tony continued diving. They called it. They didn’t have the bodies, but it didn’t matter. No one could survive on the ocean floor.

Tony continued diving. The new suit wasn’t done yet. There were reasons humans hadn’t yet visited the ocean floor. 

(He could build an arc reactor in a cave in Afghanistan but he couldn’t do _this_? He could save himself – he always could – but he could never protect the people he cared about.)

* * *

“He killed your parents. He should’ve killed _you_.”

* * *

Tony continued diving. There was a memorial. Pepper organized it – tasteful. Somber. Sedate.

He had to be there. There was no excuse. The suit wasn’t finished. He’d found all the debris he could – now he was just testing his lung capacity as he flew his search patterns and scanned for any sign of a human body.

Clint’s family wasn’t there. Neither was Sam’s. Hank Pym refused to return Pepper’s calls. He didn’t blame them. Any of them. The memorial was for government stooges to whisper soft condolences and shake their heads and mutter how tragic it all was. That they were sure that a trial would’ve cleared everything up. That the Accords had brought them so much grief, so many dead.

The Accords hadn’t brought _them_ grief.

Vision was wearing a suit, his face blank. Rhodey was in a chair, staring at the lawn. Secretary Ross had declined his invitation.

Tony had refused Pepper’s offer to say a few words, and lurked at the edge of the crowd, nursing a drink that never emptied as politicians and former SHIELD agents stood up and spoke in hollow words.

“Tony,” Rhodey said quietly, when one of Tony’s meandering walks brought him close. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what?” Tony said, finishing his drink and finding another, “Can’t do anything if there’s nothing left to ruin.”

(That was a lie. There was always something left to ruin. No matter how hard he tried, Tony always found a way.)

“Tony.”

“You’ve got another session to take some scans of your back. Pepper will drop you off at the hospital on her way back to the city.”

“Tony, please –”

He walked away. He was very good at walking away.

* * *

Another glass, in the hopes that it would make him forget.

Steve Rogers’ voice, an unending loop inside of his head – “You could’ve saved us. You could’ve saved us. _You could’ve saved us_.”

The alcohol dulled the pain, but made the voice stronger.

* * *

Tony and Vision watched as the mourners gradually dispersed. Rhodey left with Pepper and Happy. Vision turned away from the compound and walked to the woods that lined the property. And then walked past them.

Tony watched him go before he went back inside and poured himself another drink. His hands were shaking.

* * *

He wasn’t sure what glass he was on, but he had overrode FRIDAY and forced her silent after the multiple shrieking warnings on his blood alcohol level. The whole compound was silent. Nicely, horrifyingly silent.

Tony stared at the whiskey in his glass and watched as it reflected the afternoon sunlight. The room was unsteady around him and the couch felt like the deck of a rocking ship.

“FRIDAY,” he started, before he remembered that he had muted her. He needed to check on the design of the new suit.

“Why?” Clint asked idly, “It’s not like you cared. Stop pretending, Stark.”

Tony set the glass down on the table before he could drop it and sighed.

“You could’ve saved us, Tony.” Low and mournful. Sometimes the voice was angry, sometimes it was sad, but it was always disappointed.

“I’m sorry about Rhodey,” Sam whispered. Tony choked on a sob.

“You killed my parents,” Wanda said quietly, “You killed my brother. And now you killed me.”

Tony pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes so hard he saw stars.

“You could’ve saved us.”

“Tony.”

“Merchant of Death.”

“Tony.”

“How much red’s in your ledger? How much is staining your hands?”

“ _Tony_.”

“We called for help and you didn’t come.”

“Tony!”

He jolted up at the shout, and for a moment, he didn’t know what he was looking at.

Blond hair, bright blue eyes, a worried expression – no shield, because Tony had thrown the shield in his lab, because the sight of red-white-and-blue made him want to puke –

“Hallucinations,” Tony half-chuckled, “That’s new.”

“Tony,” HalluSteve looked even more worried. Tony doubted that expression had ever been directed at him in real life. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not sure I ever reached the hallucinating part of too much drinking,” Tony mused, staring at the whiskey, “And I’ve done a lot of drinking.”

“Tony, you’re not hallucinating. This is real.”

“Just what a hallucination would say,” Tony laughed, a hollow sound that caught in his throat when he saw the others.

They were arrayed along the far wall, all of them watching him. Wanda next to Clint next to Nat. Sam leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Scott fidgeting at the back.

“The ghosts of Christmas Past,” Tony said dully, and raised the glass for a silent toast.

“We’re not ghosts,” Clint replied, but his voice was missing the bite it had taken in his dreams.

“Of course you are,” Tony turned towards him, pausing to let the room stop spinning, “Because you’re _dead_. It’s okay, bird brain. I deserve it.”

“We’re not dead, Tony,” Natasha said. She was watching the glass he’d picked up again. “How much have you drunk?”

“FRIDAY,” he started, before he remembered he’d turned her off. “Ugh. I don’t know. A glass for each of my dead friends. To start.” He looked at all of them and raised his glass, “I’m sorry for killing you.”

“Tony, _we’re not dead_.” Steve was advancing closer, his hands held out and open, as if Tony was a wild animal who would spook if he moved too fast.

That was funny. Tony could barely even move. He couldn’t do a single thing to stop HalluSteve from reaching out and ending the fight a little more permanently this time.

Tony sighed. Steve was a hallucination. He couldn’t attack Tony. (No matter how badly Tony wanted to follow Steve down to the depths of the ocean.)

“You seem to have forgotten your lines,” Tony muttered, “It’s _‘you could’ve saved us’_ not _‘we’re not dead’_.”

“Tony, we’re alive. We’re here.”

The suit had to be done by now. Tony stood up – and immediately regretted it.

The room spun around him, Steve’s wide-eyed expression blurring into glass and chrome and white walls and Tony gasped as perception twisted sickeningly around him.

Someone caught him – “Rhodey?” Tony mumbled blearily, because Rhodey wasn’t supposed to be back for hours – and Steve’s blurry face superimposed itself on his vision.

“Tony, you need to breathe,” HalluSteve said earnestly and Tony groaned as he was forced into a seated position, his head between his knees.

The ex-Avengers were circled around him, wide eyes and muttering and fidgeting. “I’m sorry,” Tony said, his eyes burning, “I’m so sorry.”

Steve was in front of him, blue eyes bright and glittering. “No, Tony, you don’t have to apologize,” he said, but Tony spoke over him.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, looking at the faces of the dead as tear tracks etched down his skin. “I’m sorry I didn’t come when you needed me to. I’m sorry I failed. I’m sorry – for Ultron, for the Accords, for _everything_.”

“Tony –”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and he turned until his blurry gaze rested on Natasha. “You were right. I should’ve never been an Avenger.” Nat was silent, her disapproval evident.

“Tony, no –”

“I’m sorry,” he turned back to HalluSteve, “You were right about Barnes. It wasn’t his fault.” Tony cracked a dry smile. “Perhaps if he’d made a full set of the Starks, the world would be a better place.”

Steve’s face twisted, but the roaring in his ears swelled and everything was spinning and it was too loud and he felt like he was drifting into pieces and he kept hearing his name in Steve’s voice, over and over and over again.

Tony fell into darkness, comforted by the illusion.

* * *

The very first thing that made it through the dry, flashing pain was the too-bright light. Tony groaned and raised a hand to block it, _why_ was it so bright –

The second thing that made it through was the guilt. It settled into his stomach, deeper than the nausea, and Tony bolted upright, rubbing at his face with one hand – the suit had to be finished by now, he’d wasted so much time, he had to –

“Going somewhere?” Rhodey said flatly, arms crossed and scowling in one of the two occupied chairs. He did not look pleased.

Tony slowly turned to regard the other occupant of the room. Steve was shading something on his notepad, not looking at either of them.

“So the hallucinating isn’t a drinking thing,” Tony said hoarsely.

Rhodey’s eyes narrowed further. “He’s not a hallucination,” he bit out, and Tony had some difficulty remembering the last time Rhodey was _this_ mad. “He’s real. All of them. They didn’t sink with the Raft.” Steve’s pencil stilled and he looked up.

He didn’t look like the Steve of Tony’s nightmares. The one with a twisted smile as he gouged out the reactor, or the one with wide, wide eyes as he sunk beneath the waves. Or the one he’d seen a hundred times since the scepter, the blood and bruises and hopelessness.

Steve looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he was thinner than he’d been before Siberia. But he looked at Tony without censure or condemnation, watching him like he was unsure of what Tony would do next.

“But believe me, we _will_ have words about the drinking,” Rhodey said, and his expression dared Tony to argue.

Tony opened his mouth on principle, and shut it when his headache pulsed with a particularly vicious throb.

“You’re dead,” he said, staring at Steve.

“No, Tony, I’m alive,” Steve replied wearily, “We didn’t sink with the Raft.”

Tony stared at him, before turning to Rhodey.

“You can see him?” Tony asked in a small voice.

Rhodey’s expression twisted. “Yes, Tones,” he sighed, “I can see him. He’s alive. He’s real.”

Tony felt something lurch in his heart – what if _Rhodey_ was also a hallucination?

“Can I speak to him in private?” Steve asked quietly and Rhodey sighed before nodding.

“I unmuted FRIDAY,” Rhodey said, his voice quiet, “She said – you did – if Steve and the others had gotten here any later, you would’ve been dead.”

Tony had a quip on the tip of his tongue – he hadn’t managed to drink himself to death any other time he tried, what was so special now? – but he swallowed. He nodded, tight and sharp, and Rhodey let out a heavy exhale.

“Stark,” Sam appeared in the doorway.

“Wilson,” Tony said, watching as Sam helped Rhodey out. They started murmuring almost as soon as they cleared the doorway.

He could hear Steve shifting in the chair. Tony abruptly decided he didn’t want to hear what Steve had to say.

“You didn’t go down with the Raft,” Tony said, trying to convince himself.

“No, Tony, we didn’t.” Steve was looking at him now – he’d set the notepad down and was giving Tony his full attention.

“Why didn’t you _tell me_?” He wanted the words to be a shout, a scream, a righteous roar, but his voice cracked in the middle of the sentence and he turned away, unable to look at Steve.

“Before or after?”

Tony remained silent.

Steve sighed. “I tried to call you after. As soon as I could. Wanda was hurt and everyone was half-drowned and the middle of the Atlantic is far away from anywhere safe. The Raft sinking had not been on any of our plans. But we…we got out. And then I tried to get in touch. But you disabled my access to FRIDAY.”

Of course he had. It had been one of the first things Tony had done when Steve and Sam had vanished in Berlin.

“So I tried to call you,” Steve said softly, “But you weren’t taking calls.”

Tony remembered telling FRIDAY that he didn’t want anyone getting in touch with him. Rhodey and Pepper had unfortunately had overrides.

“And it took you –” How long had it been? How many days had he scoured the empty waters? “– this long to come back?” There was a flash of something across Steve’s face. “Or you weren’t planning to come back at all.”

“The last time I saw you,” Steve said quietly, “You blew my best friend’s arm off and tried to take me down.”

Tony sucked in a sharp breath. “The last time I saw _you_ , you shoved your shield through my _arc reactor_.”

Steve stared at him. Tony shifted in place.

“I didn’t know if I could come back,” Steve said quietly, “I was planning on explaining myself in a letter, but – but then I saw the news.”

“What did you see on the news?” Tony said wearily, because of course every word needed to be dragged out of Steve.

“You.”

Tony turned sharply to look at him. Steve met his gaze. “I saw you diving into the waves hour after hour, day after day, long after the others had given up. You didn’t deserve to think we were dead. And so we came back to make sure you knew.”

Tony leaned back to stare at the ceiling. “And before?” he said when he was sure his voice wouldn’t shake.

Steve took a deep breath. “I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t trust that you’d come to help,” he said plainly.

It hurt, but at least it was the truth. For once.

“Ross called me,” Tony said to the ceiling, “When you guys knocked on his door. Asked me to come and help.”

“Tony –”

“Told him where he could stick it. I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“Tony –”

“And then, when I saw the news… I could’ve saved you if I’d come when Ross called. I could’ve _helped_. And – and I didn’t, I just pissed the guy off and never bothered to think that even a supersoldier and a spy would have some difficulty engineering a prison break out of an underwater jail designed for holding supervillains –”

“Tony, _breathe_.”

“I thought you were dead,” Tony gasped, reaching for Steve’s hand because he needed to feel that Steve was real, that Steve was _here_ , that he was warm and alive and not bloated and cold and clammy. “I thought you were dead _and it was all my fault_.”

Several expressions crossed Steve’s face before he moved. Tony’s fingers fisted in Steve’s jacket, like if he held on tightly enough the past weeks would just be a bad dream, as he listened to Steve’s heartbeat and tried to remember how to breathe. Steve’s arms were warm around him, comforting and encompassing and _safe_.

Captain America. How could he not be safe?

“I’m not dead,” Steve said, the words rumbling under Tony’s cheek, “And it’s not your fault.”

Tony bit back a harsh laugh at that, because it was always his fault. “Agree to disagree,” he said hoarsely, drawing a shaky breath.

“No,” Steve said flatly.

Tony shivered at his tone, “What –”

Steve drew back enough that he could look Tony in the eyes. “I said _no_ ,” Steve repeated, his expression dark, “No more disagreeing. No more fighting. We’re a team. It’s about time we acted like it.”

“How do you propose we do that?” Tony asked, tired, “Call Loki back for some mayhem?”

“Talking,” Steve said quietly, “Listening.”

Tony slumped back against the pillows.

“If you’ll have us,” Steve said. He sounded unconcerned, but when Tony looked, there was worry bracketing his eyes.

“I’ve always wanted to live in a haunted house,” Tony said, trying for a smile. Steve winced when he saw it, but he returned it with his own.

* * *

“Hey, do you think we can convince Ross that you’re all ghosts?”


End file.
